


And in Circles

by Blurble



Category: Aveyond
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurble/pseuds/Blurble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans told stories in lines, piece by piece, occasionally zigzagging back and forth between forgotten scraps, another product of their strange confusing minds.</p><p>Elves tell stories in circles, of course, the normal way.</p><p>Ean/Iya, the adventure ending. Ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And in Circles

Late nights sometimes Ean found his parents sitting together on the couch, staring, into each other's eyes or into the distance. It was... a form of meditation, a communion with a wholeness of things. It was something wonderful, they explained to him. Countless others explained to him. Young elves matured and married and together were able to sit quietly, peacefully, in deep thought. No words needed to be exchanged.   
  
It was a happiness and completion of being that belonged solely to elves, the Goddess's gift to them. The Goddess had a soft spot for all her charges but the elves were her favorite, because they were closest to her, because they were kind and peaceful and content to remain the same, sitting together, experiencing the perfection of unity.  
  
All this Ean learned, and he learned to accept and love and yearn for the same for himself, when the restless twitches off elf-childhood slaked away from him as they did from all elves, and he could live the hundreds of remaining years of his life in peaceful contentment.  
  
What he forgot, was the fear he felt that first night that he wandered from his bed, when he saw the soft sweet smiles on his parents' faces while they did not answer him when he called.  
  
\---  
  
The human world was strange and colorless and dull, they said, and certainly in the Snow Queen's kingdom it was bare and bleak... and cold, so cold.  
  
And Iya had been shivering and miserable and confused when he found her, when they ran away.  
  
He had been so happy, so relieved to see her. Later, when things became increasingly difficult, as they raced around this unfamiliar world searching for the missing parts of her, that was what he would remember and hold on to. How happy he had been. How beautiful she had looked, even terrified out of her senses.  
  
\---  
  
Humans, he discovered, smelled funny.   
  
The-boy-whose-name-is-Rye smelled like something musky and salty and not entirely pleasant. At night he whispered to Iya about it.  
  
“Don't be mean,” she murmured, and dozed off. She did that very much, lately, but he couldn't blame her, she was missing so very much of herself.   
  
\---  
  
In the elf world they sang the dead to sleep, six days of mourning and a day of celebration as the newly departed joined the ranks of the Ancestors.  
  
On the seventh day the soul returned to its home and waited there, to receive well-wishers and parting gifts before leaving, for once and for all.  
  
Ean had only attended two such Singings in his entire life, and the first one was a dim memory from babyhood.  
  
As for the second, he'd joined in the singing as fervently as all the elves. A death-singing wasn't just for Singers to participate in. Even unskilled, untrained voices added to the raw force of power.  
  
But.  
  
He did not sing the woodsman to sleep. He had nothing to sing.  
  
He thought, perhaps, that Iya might. But she stared blankly at his corpse instead.  
  
No compassion in her, he remembered. He had to be... understanding.  
  
He thought of the dead man's eyes and he wanted to scream, or vomit.  
  
Instead he tightened his fingers on the wooden figurine.  
  
It was important, in this cursed world. This cursed world where the dead were not sung for.  
  
He ached for home.  
  
His claws struck viciously at every creature that crossed his way.  
  
He ached for home.  
  
\---  
  
The world had once been water.  
  
The Goddess had created land, for the land-creatures to live on, but the voice of the water remained.   
  
Elves followed the flow of the memory of water.  
  
Elves bent- but did not break. Redirected, but did not resist. Elves were in harmony, elves were at peace.  
  
Ean doubted that Prince Uthar understood the implication of the word “resistance” in elvish.   
  
Nor did he care.  
  
He would join it anyway.  
  
Cursed world.  
  
\---  
  
It was Rye who closed the dead man's eyes.  
  
“He was very brave,” he said. “And noble.”  
  
The words fell with little thunks from his mouth. The woodsman did not stir.  
  
It was Rye who pressed the elf-shape into Ean's paw at last, who forced him to eat something, to recover.  
  
Rye clapped him on the back and kept his hand there for just a moment, long enough to let the heat seep through, before he stepped back awkwardly.  
  
Elves did not cry. Ean did not cry.  
  
He smelled, instead, the whiff that Rye left behind, salt and sweat and regret. For once he did not grimace.  
  
\----  
  
Their last night in the Bogwoods before they headed to Seri, he kept watch as the others slept. Gavin had curled up in a pile of leaves. Rye and Iya were leaning against the trunk of a dark, twisted tree.  
  
He was listening to the rhythm of Rye's soft snores when he heard Iya step quietly towards him.  
  
“You should rest,” he said. “You are still very weak.”  
  
“I know,” she said. “But I feel much better, even if I'm not. It's fading, I think, but for a moment after I got the blessing I felt such a  _rush_...”  
  
“Still...” he said, carefully.  
  
“I can't sleep,” she said. “That boy snores and he smells.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“Rather like an animal,” she added. And giggled.  
  
He couldn't disagree. It was, after all, true.  
  
He focused his gaze on some point in the distance.  
  
“I hate this place,” he said.  
  
“So do I,” she said.  
  
\---  
  
Heptitus was all manner of words that ended in itch.  
  
They fled the house before she returned, and he looked at Iya and waited to see a difference.  
  
Was she more alive?  
  
He thought she was.  
  
She saw him watching and winked.  
  
He blinked, surprised at the smile that twitched on her lips, and wondered, just for a moment, what sort of blessing an evil witch could bestow, anyway.  
  
\---  
  
The way the spy moved around Gavin and the way Gavin looked at her, felt like something strange and unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  
  
“It's just love,” Rye said, but looked disgusted. “I wish they'd put a lid on it.”  
  
It wasn't any love that Ean had seen.  
  
\---  
  
He bought Iya the kitten.  
  
It mewled cutely and she smiled and petted it.  
  
He'd wanted it to bring her back.   
  
She'd blushed and said thank you. There was still the glow of Ceri's blessing in her, a glow he remembered from Heptitus's blessing as well. It had faded, after a while. It would fade again, but maybe this time it would last longer.  
  
He felt something like frustration and was surprised at his own selfishness. It was not Iya's fault. It was...  
  
He bought her the ring as well.  
  
Because that was what love was about.  
  
\---  
  
  
They made camp and settled and he walked into a clearing, to find Iya, standing still with eyes closed.  
  
“I- oh. I'm sorry,” he said, feeling awkward.  
  
She looked at him and smiled, turning slightly pink.  
  
“It's okay,” she said. “I was just meditating. I get so worried, sometimes, and it helps. You can join me.”  
  
She held out her hands and hesitantly he stepped forward and touched fingers with her, felt the peace rush in.  
  
Peace and calm and quiet and relaxation and rest and ease flowed through him, suffused him...  
  
He twitched.  
  
Somewhere deep inside of him something stirred, restless and uneasy.  
  
Against his will his eyes snapped open, and he saw Iya, eyes still closed, smiling peacefully.  
  
Feeling deeply guilty, unsure why, he held her hands for another moment before tearing himself away, to hunt down some monsters and get some more practice, because he needed it, because he needed to be strong.  
  
The restlessness remained.  
  
\---  
Emma fought in the tournament.  
  
He watched and felt the excitement rushing through him his hair standing on edge, breath catching as she tripped, as she recovered, as she...  
  
It was not a feeling he would have appreciated or understood, before.  
  
But now he knew what it meant to fight.  
  
It was not an elf-thing.  
  
But he knew it anyway.  
  
\---  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
They were her first words to him after every battle.  
  
No matter how injured she was herself.  
  
Always when the rest of them were tired and fed up, even when she was tired and scared herself, she tried to comfort them and keep them going.  
  
She had three blessings, now, half of herself restored, and he could see in her his Iya, his kind, lovely Iya.  
  
What he could also see was something he might not have noticed, once.  
  
But surrounded by Emma and Rye on one side, and Gavin and Ava on the other, it was far easier for him to notice the symptoms in his dear friend.  
  
She was in love with him, he thought, and felt happy, of course, and knew that it was right, fated, meant to be.  
  
And of course he was okay.  
\---  
  
As per usual they came to a town and split up, to gather information and supplies.   
  
When Rye wasn't with Emma- i.e. during each of their rather frequent fights- he hung around with Ean.  
  
He was very funny, actually, and charming and interesting. Interesting in particular. His mind worked in a... in a human way, Ean thought.  
  
He managed to provide a refreshing yet bizarre perspective on so many things Ean had taken for granted.  
  
There was that, then. Rye had become a... friend. It was strange using the term only because Ean knew when he said it that he meant something distinct from elf-friend.  
  
Rye couldn't be an elf-friend, Ean knew that instinctively. It wasn't something that... It just didn't work.  
  
A friend of a different sort, then.  
  
\---  
  
Iya was learning, learning by the day, songs and magic like elves should and he-  
  
He felt the flesh press in underneath his claws, felt the ripping and tearing of the muscle as he swiped, as they crumpled-  
  
Elves did not destroy. Elves did not fight. Elves did not grin and high-five over a battle well fought and well-won.  
  
An elf figurine and a beast. He was... he wish he remembered which one he was.  
  
\---  
  
There were the others, too. Emma who was passionate- alright, sometimes disconcertingly so- and who understood somehow intuitively the need Ean felt to be better, to be more, to be stronger.  
  
They fell in the habit of sparring together.  
  
As for Ava, Ean had something like awe for her, not at first but after a while.  
  
She was wise, he thought.  
  
She was wise in a way he wouldn't have recognized as wisdom, in a stranger, quicker, sharper way.  
  
Gavin simply confused Ean.  
  
\---  
  
They'd helped dressmakers and novel-writers and star-crossed lovers and more.  
  
The human world, he thought, was not so colorless nor so bleak as he had once thought.  
  
But it was so very big.  
  
He had never known the world could be so big.  
  
\---  
  
One night Iya was the one who stayed up with him to keep watch- these days he usually kept watch at least half the night, spurred by a need to stay alert, keep moving, that left him incapable of sleep unless utterly exhausted.  
  
And Iya had gotten strong enough to handle it and anyway she wanted to stay with him, to talk with him, and he wanted to talk with her too.  
  
They spoke softly so as not to wake the others, about home and mutual friends and their journey together.  
  
“I miss the Elfwood,” she said. “I want to go back.”  
  
“I miss it too,” he said, as always, by rote, but then he hesitated.  
  
“But I... I've kind of gotten used to it here,” he said. “It's so much more...”  
  
She tilted her head, uncomprehending.  
  
“Never mind,” he said, and smiled to reassure her, to ease the crinkle of worry between her eyes.  
  
\---  
  
Hope made Iya vibrant, he thought.  
  
It made her... sparkle.  
  
His throat ached when he looked at her.  
  
He hadn't realized being in love felt quite this painful. And lovely. He told her that.  
  
“What do you mean, painful?” She said.  
  
He hesitated, unsure.  
  
“I feel so happy being with you,” she said, nuzzling him lightly.  
  
“Me too,” he said, whispered, hoarse.  
  
\---  
  
The anti-were potion turned a beast into a man.  
  
Somewhere inside of him a weight he had forgotten he was carrying lifted.  
  
\---  
  
And as they came closer and closer to some fateful moment- it was an approach they could almost sense, with each piece that fell into place, the blueprints, the squirrels...  
  
They flew together on dragonback, his arms around her waist, and she talked and talked of home.  
  
He listened to the music the wind made of her voice.  
  
He listened and ignored the doubts.  
  
They were in love and they were perfect.  
  
\---  
  
Post-marriage, Rye and Emma- in between fights, or more disturbingly during fights- had a tendency to kiss rather a lot.  
  
Ean and Iya looked away in unison, embarrassed.  
  
\---  
  
But in the end it wasn't Ishtar.  
  
But in the end it wasn't...  
  
It was over, actually.  
  
It didn't feel real, but the others immediately drifted away, released to do what they needed.  
  
Of course he goes with Iya, to a tree he remembers from what seems like so long ago.  
  
Of course he does.  
  
But.  
  
But she looks at him with something like compassion in her eyes.  
  
The final piece, he thinks.  
  
“Are you coming, Ean?” She says, slender, perfect arm extended.  
  
And he wills his legs to move and they do not.  
  
He stared at her, the awful understanding grown so huge inside him it can no longer be denied, there is nothing he can do but say it-  
  
He thinks of snowy mountains, and deserts, and dragons, and city guards and talking squirrels and the wooden statues he carries with him.  
  
“No,” he says.  
  
And she turns to sing- and he glimpses, for a moment, what she would look like in a wedding dress, resplendent, beautiful.  
  
“N-” He begins, and the tree opens up and she is gone.  
  
Elves do not cry, he thinks, and curls up in agony on the ground, aching empty dryness filling him, he breathes in pine and life and freshness and he sobs.  
  
And when that ceases he lies there.  
  
And when that, too, ends he gets up.  
  
And he brushes himself off.  
  
And he flies, dragon-back, to Thais.  
  
\---  
  
It had always, he realized, been a story about finding something.   
  
Those were always stories about losing something, weren't they? 


End file.
